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The basic answer is that an average photo editor makes £57,468 per year. However, the true answer is significantly more complicated. Through Blue Sky Graphics’ online Graphic Design College Stockport, you may study industry-standard picture editing and graphics design.
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Let us go through this in further depth.
What should you charge for photo editing services?
Let us begin by defining the word “editing.” There are several techniques for image editing, each of which requires a different amount of time, ability, and experience.
Simple image editing: This kind of editing entails making little alterations to the image, such as colour correction and horizon levelling.
Then there’s photo editing, which enhances the picture by removing glare from glass or enlarging the image’s background.
Finally, there is specific photo editing. This might include adjusting the colour of an item, smoothing out wrinkles, or even rearranging the background. This level of editing might take anything from ten minutes to hours — for each image!
For the sake of this piece, let us assume we are discussing the middle ground – more than exposure and cropping adjustments, but not comprehensive beauty retouching. Additionally, we will assume you are paying for the editing alone, not the session or the images themselves.
Numerous methods for determining your rates
When it comes to pricing your editing, you have a few different alternatives. While some photographers and editors apply complicated formulae, determining editing fees often boils down to three options: by the hour, by the project, or by the image. Each approach offers a number of distinct benefits and downsides.
Establishing hourly rates for photo editing
While charging by the hour is the most straightforward approach of pricing your editing, it is not necessarily the best. While you will have a reasonable idea of what you need to create and how long you need to work to be profitable, the likelihood is that your perception of how long an edit should take and your client’s perception of how long the same task should take are very different.
When you approach the end of the first hour and realise you’ve created just eight images, you may need to revisit the client and revise their expectations for the total cost of the job. That is never an easy subject to broach.
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On the other hand, you may sail through editing the whole session and find yourself unable to rapidly make up for lost money as a result of being too good at your work. You don’t believe you should be penalised for being efficient, do you? Due to these challenges, setting your editing rates by the hour works best when you have a collection of similar images, a well-defined process, and a good notion of how long each image will take you.
How long does it take to edit a photograph of a product? 25% of editors spend between five and ten minutes on each shot, while 20% spend more than a half hour.
Choosing the appropriate cost structure for image editing depending on the scope of the project
Then there is the method used on a project-by-project basis. This is a straightforward kind of marketing since clients know what to expect from the start. You will offer them X number of images for Y amount of money, regardless of the length of time required.
This may sometimes work well for both parties. However, you may find yourself spending far more time than planned striving to polish the images.
As with the by-the-hour approach, this methodology works best if you can accurately predict the time required to complete the project. If you’re just starting started and have no idea how long it takes you to complete an edit, time yourself throughout a few sessions and build a baseline so you know what you’re getting into.
Pricing for image editing dependent on the image
Finally, there is the method of image-by-image. This is a fairly easy strategy – if you price £1 each image, the consumer will get ten photographs for £10. Due to the simplicity of this technique of billing, it may benefit all parties involved. Additionally, it simplifies budgeting for your client – and revenue forecasting for you.
On the other side, it may be confounding, especially if you provide a range of editing levels. If you do not have a minimum order requirement, this may irritate you as an editor, since there will always be people who assume they can hire you for a single image. You run the danger of losing a great deal of time and money if you spend time conversing with them in addition to modifying their single image.
If you want to sell your service by the image, consider packaging it in increments of 20, 40, and 60 images, for example. Customers will retain their understanding of the pricing, and you will save time by not updating just one or two images.
Whatever method you use, bear in mind that your fee should be proportionate to your experience. After all, it seems sense that a senior editor with experience and credentials should be payed more than someone fresh to the industry.
What should you charge for photo editing services?
After considering everything, it’s time to put some numbers on paper. Begin by calculating the time required to edit a single image. Then calculate the time required to edit a typical photo collection. If you’ve opted to provide many levels of editing, repeat this procedure for each.
After you’ve determined how much time you’ll need to dedicate to photo editing and how much money you’ll need to make overall, determine how much time you’ll need to devote to other tasks. Once you have these figures, you may divide the amount of money you need to earn by the length of time required to finish a session.
Let us simplify the math and suppose you need £1,000 each week, want to work ten hours per week, and each session lasts around an hour.
